


What Was, Is, and Never Should Be

by Lerah99



Series: 2020 Trope Bingo [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Being Smart Won't Save You, Canonical Character Death, Dubious Morality, Gen, Just because you're smart doesn't mean you're right, Morally Grey Hermione Granger, No Other Doctor Who Characters or References, Politics, Time Travel, Trope Bingo Time Travel, Weeping Angels - Freeform, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:08:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26076196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lerah99/pseuds/Lerah99
Summary: Post Voldemort's defeat magical Britain takes it's pureblood preference and rebrands them.With Harry allying with and agreeing with the Malfoys, Hermione finds herself as the lone voice against muggleborn adoptions by pureblood families.How far will she go to fix things?Well, she's always been the smartest witch of her age. If she can't fix things now, maybe she can fix the past so this present never happens.
Series: 2020 Trope Bingo [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1893091
Comments: 10
Kudos: 43
Collections: Just Write! Trope Bingo





	What Was, Is, and Never Should Be

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Just Write 2020 Trope Bingo: Time Travel.

Hermione knew her appointment in Creature Relations was supposed to be demeaning. Even after Voldemort’s death, wixen society had strong pureblood preferences. Though now they were rebranded as “preserving tradition”, “restoring honor to the families almost lost during the two blood wars”, and “reviving families thought lost to time”. The Malfoys had started a trend by “adopting” a muggleborn boy and girl at their first sign of accidental magic, which caused their names to appear on the Hogwarts rolls. The children’s families’ memories were altered and the children adopted through a blood ritual which ensured loyalty and love for their new family. It had been heralded as a way to strengthen the Statute of Secrecy and prevent the abuse that had influenced the childhoods of Tom Riddle, Severus Snape, and Harry Potter. The adopted children were considered purebloods just as if they’d been born to the line because they were fully entrenched in the family magic. 

Muggleborn and halfblood magicals were encouraged to pay the 175 galleon fee at Gringotts for a comprehensive line test after Justin Finch-Fletchley discovered he was actually Lord LeFey, a line thought to have died out in the 1400’s. There were scholarships for line tests set up for students graduating in the top 10% at Hogwarts. Many masters paid for line tests for their apprentices because the connections one could make in society greatly improved with an established family to claim. There were even positions in the ministry that included line testing as a benefit. Of course they were usually the dangerous positions like creature enforcement, auror, and unspeakable or they were undesirable positions like sanitation, muggle containment, and potion ingredient harvester. Of course if someone in one of those positions was found to be part of a great family, they could expect promotions and greater networking potential. 

Ron and Harry had fully supported the new measures. Ron because previous lines that were declared “blood traitors” were now back to simply being seen as “traditional” or “pureblood”. Harry, whose line test had established him as Lord Potter, Lord Black, Lord Peverell, and Lord Slytherin, was the face of the “New Purebloods” as Witches World Weekly called them. 

During a heated discussion over lunch one day Harry had declared, “Look at all the people suddenly being accepted by these stuffy old families. The Malfoys have two muggleborn kids being raised like a little prince and princess, rather than excluded. Give it another 10-15 years and there won’t be any new muggleborns because all of them will have been adopted into one family’s magic or another. Look at all the lines we thought had died out but instead are returning to us from the muggle world. Everyone is going to be part of the accepted class. Isn’t that what we’ve been working for, Hermione? Isn’t that what the war was all about? Why did we fight and bleed and die if you want to keep things the way they were?” 

“I don’t want to keep things the way they were. I want wixen society to accept that blood status doesn’t mean anything. It should be about merit, not family name. Muggleborn kids shouldn’t have to lose their families to be accepted!” Hermione had replied. 

“Not everyone had such perfect families. And if yours was so great, why are your parents still in Australia? They weren’t exactly so accepting and supportive of your magic after you used it on them, were they? Muggles are always going to be afraid of us. In your case, your parents decided to keep half the planet between you and them. In my case, they tried to beat and starve the magic out of me. I prayed every night for some loving family to save me. I would have happily grown up with the Malfoys, even with all their former faults and prejudices. Because regardless of what poor choices Lucius made as a young man, he loves his kids. They are warm, well fed, and loved. Doesn’t every kid deserve that, Hermione?”

“Harry, of course every kid deserves that. That’s why social services exist. Your teachers should have reported the Dursleys. You should have been removed from that home. No kid should be abused.” 

“So I should have grown up in an orphanage like Riddle? Or bounced around between foster families just hoping I’d land in good ones? That’s better than being adopted by a magical family that would love me as one of their own?”

“You're twisting what I’m saying. In cases of abuse, being adopted by a magical family is great. But these kids aren’t abused. Their parents loved them. They had a family. They shouldn’t be torn away from their real family and forced by magic into loving a new family. It’s horrifying.”

“Adoption is horrifying. I see. In that case I’ll ask Luna to take over as Teddy’s godmother. I’d hate for you to feel your morals were compromised by being part of something as horrific as magical adoption.” Harry’s jaw was clenched as he pushed back from the table. 

“Harry, that’s not fair. You know I think you and Ginny adopting Teddy is wonderful. We are just talking at cross purposes and misunderstanding each other because we’re both passionate about this. You’re my oldest and dearest friend. Please don’t go away mad.” Hermione reached out to take his hand but Harry jerked away. 

“I think I need a little time to cool off. I never expected you to be so closed minded, Hermione. I’ll reach out when I’m ready to hear your apology.” Harry tossed some galleons on the table and walked away. That had been three months ago. After a month Hermione had sent him a letter, but the owl returned with it unopened. 

Ron had sided with Harry, telling Hermione that she would understand if she’d embraced her family magic rather than continuing to deny it. It was a low blow. Ron and Hermione had been engaged for a hot minute about 6 months after the Battle of Hogwarts. In that brief period Hermione confided to Ron that she’d gone to Gringotts a couple weeks after Voldemort’s defeat for a line test. She’d read about line tests and how they’d fallen out of popularity in the 1930’s, after the establishment of the Sacred 28. Plus, she was curious if she might actually be related to potioneer Hector Dagoworth-Granger. She was also reeling from her parents refusing to move back to England now that their memories were restored. So deep down maybe she was hoping for some family connections, a place to belong. 

Turns out, she’s Lady Lestrange. If she accepted the title, and the family magic that goes with it, she would be handed the Lestrange vaults, properties, and accounts. She considered it. The best revenge being a life well lived and all that rot. Plus, the Lestrange library is supposed to be quite impressive. But every time she considers it, she remembers Bellatrix Lestrange cackling while carving the word Mudblood into Hermione’s skin. 

Ron thought she was crazy not to claim the Lestrange fortune and magic. “Bellatrix had the Black madness, not the Lestrange madness. You don’t hold that against Harry who is Lord Black. So why should you miss out on all the benefits of being Lady Lestrange? You know they’d finally promote you out of Creature Regulation and into something like Magical Law or Spell Research if you simply claim what is already yours by right.” Ron had argued. It had become a recurring argument. Hermione had the distinct impression that Ron would happily trade in his auror robes for a life as Lord Consort Lestrange, playing quidditch and owning racing abraxians as a gentleman of leisure should she shoulder the title Lady Lestrange. It was one of the many reasons their engagement didn’t last. Hermione had begged Ron not to tell anyone, and he hadn’t. But that didn’t stop him from bringing it up with her any time they met. 

Hermione knew she was facing a losing battle. Pureblood superiority was too entrenched into magical society. Eliminating muggleborn kids by adopting them into pureblood families is wrong. Tearing loving families apart to make kids more palatable to magical society and forcing those kids to embrace and love their new families, the very people who tore them away from their real families, through ritual blood magic is a gross violation of those kids’ very being. 

But no one will listen to her in this political climate. Harry Potter, The Man-Who-Lived, Head of Four Magical Lines, Hero of the Two Blood Wars, Vanquisher of He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, Leader of the Light, had spoken passionately in favor of magical adoption. He’d laid out the abuses suffered in the muggle world by magical children, including himself and Tom Riddle. He connected the Two Blood Wars to the abuse Tom Riddle suffered in a muggle orphanage. He’d spoken about how dangerous muggles have become with their nuclear bombs and vast array of recording devices. He cut a dashing figure and spoke with upright zeal about magical adoption of muggleborn being the path to overcoming past prejudices and paving the way to a safer and brighter future.

Ginny Potter, Lady Love and Wife of Harry Potter, Quidditch Star, Hero of the Battle of Hogwarts, and Celebrity Philanthropist funded a muggleborn adoption service. Part of that funding ensured poor pureblood families, like the Weasleys had been, would receive generous stipends for adopted muggleborn kids to cover food, clothes, various expenses, as well as Hogwarts tuition and supplies. Ginny had also taken on the cause of keeping squibs as a part of magical society. The prevailing theory being that most muggleborn kids are actually the descendants of squibs who were banished from the magical world. She created squib employment agencies. Advocating for squibs as domestic help, nannies, tutors, gardeners, etc... in households that can’t magically support house elves. Ginny also funded squib owned and operated farms, plant nurseries, etc… insisting that the magical world had become too dependent on muggles for food supplies, ornamental plants, and even some potion supplies. There were even rumors of the Unspeakables employing squibs as deep cover spies in the muggle world to provide insight on muggle politics, technology, weapons, etc… The example of success was Argus Filch. He secured a loan through Squib Services to buy some land and start up a sheep farm. Norris Wool and Mutton is now a well respected business in the magical world. Squib Services had brochures made up with a smiling Filch holding Mrs. Norris in front of a green rolling pasture filled with fluffy sheep. 

Neville and Luna Longbottom had taken up the cause of educating all magical kids before they were old enough for Hogwarts. They set up elementary schools across England, Wales, and Scotland to teach kids reading, math, writing, history, decorum, spell theory, potion basics, music, art, and household maintenance. Each school had teacher aides and tutors dedicated to getting newly adopted muggleborn kids caught up to their classmates so everyone would enter Hogwarts on equal footing. It had been a huge coup for them when Lady Malfoy enrolled her newly adopted son and daughter in the local elementary school. Established families still hired tutors to teach their kids in additional subjects like Latin, Greek, French, Estate Management, piano forte, drawing, painting, needlework, dance, and politics. Neville and Luna were hoping to be able to offer all those subjects as either classes or extra curricular clubs once the elementary schools became more firmly established. 

The work of the Potters and Longbottoms made philanthropy and working for the good of magical society in vogue. Cho Chang published a paper giving the basics of genetics and showing the strong likelihood that close intermarrying caused low birth rates, squibs, and even madness in future generations. It became a bestseller. Percy and Penelope Weasley started a matchmaking service that included pureblood families all through Europe and the Americas to help ensure new blood entering British Wixen Society. Susan and Lavender Bones established a werewolf community in 120 acres of Scotish Highlands. The community raised highland cows and puffins, selling meat, dairy, leather, and feathers to raise money for wolfsbane potions for each member. With Harry Potter’s enthusiastic support, all the magical kids from the werewolf community were granted scholarships to Hogwarts. Draco and Blaise Zambini-Malfoy founded three new magical hospitals across Wales, Ireland, and Scotland. They recruited some of the finest healers across Europe to come teach new apprentices their techniques. 

The Daily Prophet and The Quibbler both were declaring post-war Britain to be in a Golden Age thanks to the adoption of new blood into old families and the philanthropy of those who had fought in the Second Blood War. Any dissenting voices were immediately labeled as “supporting blood prejudice” and “advocating to bring back the terrorism of the two Blood Wars”. The Wizarding Wireless was filled with new songs declaring love of country and all things patriotic. Members of the Wizengamont had taken to wearing pins of two crossed wand surrounded by a wreath of laurels over the top of a union jack. Flags with that same design were popping up in shop windows and outside of magical homes. 

It was only her well known friendship with Harry and Ron as well as her efforts in the Second Blood War that had kept Hermione from being labeled as a “seditious personality”. Just about every other named fighter in the Battle of Hogwarts and every head of a magical family had made a speech or written a public letter in support of the practice. Lots of bombastic declarations about “Never again will we face a blood war!” and “This will herald a new dawn for Magical Britain!”. Narcissa Malfoy had written a stirring essay titled “Not of My Womb, but Always of My Heart” about the joys and challenges of adopting her youngest two kids. George Weasley’s letter to the editor titled “Single Father Finds New Life” about how adopting his daughter brought him love and joy that he hadn’t felt since his twin’s death at the battle of Hogwarts made it socially acceptable for bachelor wizards and spinster witches to adopt a muggleborn kid. 

Even Hermione’s boss had mentioned in passing that the Ministry had a generous parental leave policy for anyone who wanted to adopt a child. Maybe if she’d get an official line test done, she’d get lucky, find out she was pureblood afterall and she’d be allowed to adopt a muggleborn kid. Plus, considering her own background, she’d already have common ground with the kid. When Hermione firmly stated she had no interest in doing any such thing, her boss had sighed and said, “Look, I get that change is hard. We all got really used to one way of thinking. But you have to let go of these blood status prejudices. It looks bad for you and reflects badly on the whole department.” 

Hermione knew the writing was on the wall. If she were smart, she’d move to another country. But she’s too stubborn for that. England is her home. She cannot let these adoptions continue unopposed. She cannot pretend everything is fine and the wixen community of the United Kingdom is greater than ever before. Having fought one seemingly hopeless war already, she’s too practical to take it head on. She’s not going to try to leverage herself against the rest of her peers. She needed an outside of the box solution. She wasn’t expecting Gringotts to give her the solution. 

As part of her Creature Regulation duties Hermione negotiated an intellectual exchange between wixen and goblins regarding known creatures, their habitats, attributes, etc… It’s in one of the Gringotts scrolls that she learns about the Weeping Angels. Technically an extraterrestrial race, they eat potential life by sending a person back in time thereby consuming their previous potential future. The goblins had figured out the arithmancy used by the angels to pinpoint when the angels will send their target. For fun, on her tea break, Hermione had calculated when she’d arrive: December 21, 1926. The part of Hermione’s brain that stores random facts and figures helpfully pointed out that it was ten days before Tom Riddle was born. 

It was a crazy plan. But the more Hermione contemplated it, the more it seemed the perfect solution. She goes back, helps Merope Gaunt give birth, and adopts little Tom Riddle. She gives him a loving home, safety, a name to be proud of, and no reason to become an insane terrorist terrified of his own mortality. Going by the Gringotts Code, if she is Lady Lestrange in this time, Magic and therefore Gringotts will recognize her as Lady Lestrange in all times. She would be considered Head of a different Lestrange family, most likely from the continent, but still have the right to a seat on the Wizengamont and still be considered pureblood by magical society. 

Herminone spent the next few weeks reading up everything she could about 1920’s magical society. She makes copies of old society pages from the Daily Prophet for 1920-1980, she goes to Borgin and Burkes and buys a book trunk that includes 3 diaries from the period mixed in with various banned books on blood magic and black magic. She brushes up on how to perform the blood adoption ritual. She spends time talking to the woman who owned Gladrags in the 1920’s and asks all about the fashion of the time. She leaves with stacks of fashion magazines, books, and patterns. She hires a team of 11 squib seamstresses to create a 1920’s wardrobe for her. She talks about how muggles participate in recreation events and she’s thinking of joining a 1920’s group. She provides so many details and tangents while talking that their eyes glaze over and no one asks why she wants a 1920’s magical wardrobe for muggle recreation events.

Next Hermione grabs stock market reports for 1920-1980. She’ll bring back as much money as she can. But knowing where to wisely invest to steadily grow her money without looking suspicious will be helpful. She also pays for a Gringotts account manager for 5 hours of confidential consultation. She asks about Gringotts protocols for galleons brought from the future into the past and is assured the Goblin Nation will recognize and accept the currency at face value. She asks about services to establish a new identity in the past, newt equivalents, a homeschooled certificate of education completion, etc… She is happily surprised to find that so long as the documents are created in the future and then brought back to the past, no laws are broken. It is the forging of the documents in the past that would be an issue. Anything created today for 1910 or 1920 would, of course, be for entertainment purposes only and therefore completely legal. 

Access to the Weeping Angels kept in one of Gringotts lower vaults is very expensive. It will be Hermione’s entire life savings plus another 10,000 galleons. 

So Hermione accepts the title of Lady Lestrange and the Lestrange Family Magic with the hope that there are still some galleons in their coffers. Luck is on her side. She fills a trunk with all the leftover galleons, sickles, and knuts after the fee is paid. She is comfortable by today’s standards, and will be rich by 1920’s standards. She shrinks down the trunk and adds it to her beaded bag. She’s wearing the robe, dress, slip, stockings, boots, etc… of a well off young lady for the period. She’s got a full length 1920’s fur coat draped over her arm. The Lestrange Family Magic is humming through her. She can feel it jump and circle inside her like a hound looking for a cozy place to sleep. It’s warm, dark, and rich. She didn’t expect to feel it so strongly or to like it so much. She can see why having this sort of family magic made purebloods think they were special. With all her documentation in order, money to burn, and a wardrobe to help her fit in, Hermione is ready. She’s going to burn this future down by fixing the past. Part of her worries about butterfly effect, erasing her friends from reality by changing something in the past, maybe even erasing herself. But she can’t think of another way to fix things. She doesn’t have the power to fight against an entire society gone mad and flooded with jingoistic slogans about how right they are. 

Squaring her shoulders Hermione nodded at the goblin in front of the Weeping Angels vault. The goblin guard recites the procedures: “After you enter, close your eyes and one of the Weeping Angels will touch you. It will feel like a brief jolt. Immediately open your eyes, cast a strong luminos, and pull the cord on your right. This will ring an alarm for the on duty guard to open the vault whenever you end up. Keep your eyes trained on the Weeping Angels in the vault until you are let out.” 

Hermione looked at the angel statues in the dimly lit vault as the door closed behind her. Part of her wondered if this was all an elaborate practical joke by the Goblin Nation. Make up time eating aliens, charge a small fortune to be sent back in time, laugh a lot when you let the wixen out of the vault, keep their money as a gullibility fee. Those thoughts fled when a chill ran down Hermione’s spine. Nothing moved, and yet something seemed to have shifted. Suddenly her instincts were telling her she was in danger. Hermione wanted to pull the cord now, leave the vault before she could be touched, find a better plan. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. 

The orphanage matron had been casting suspicious looks at Hermione since she arrived. She rang the bell shortly after 6pm with several bags of food, blankets, socks, toys, and candy as well as a thin explanation about meaning to bring the items for Christmas but time just getting away from her. Hermione had then bullied her way into a tour of the orphanage, questioned what the matron saw as their greatest needs, and then sat herself down in the matron’s office obviously not planning to leave any time soon. The matron was exhausted and wanted to send Hermione on her way, but couldn’t risk alienating a potential patron. They'd been in the matron’s office for over an hour when the front bell rang again. Outside was a very preganant young lady shivering in the cold. “Please, please, help.” she said as she bent over holding her belly. 

“I can help.” Hermione said grabbing Merope’s arm and helping the Matron bring her inside. Hermione boiled water, fetched towels, and held Merope’s hand. Merope kept saying, “His dad has money. Tom Riddle of Little Hangleton in Yorkshire. He’ll help. I know he will.” Finally her son was born. Merope held him and said “Hello, little Tom. You look just like your daddy.” Hermione was helping clean the baby when the Matron cursed and demanded more towels. Something had gone wrong with the afterbirth and Merope was hemorrhaging. Hermione froze, holding baby Tom Riddle and watching his mother bleed out. She knew the spell that would save her. But if she saved Merope, Tom would grow up with his uncle and grandfather. Who knows what kind of monster that would make him? Hermione was sick to her very core, standing there, knowing she was going to let Merope Gaunt die. She was willing to trade this silly teenage girl’s life in order to try to make a better tomorrow. She tried to justify it to herself. Merope had always died giving birth to Tom. It’s not like Hermione murdered her. She just didn’t save her. There was a difference. It was for the greater good. That had to be enough, didn’t it? 

Hermione swore to herself that she’d make this ok. She would raise Tom to be smart, compassionate, and, above all, a good man. The two Blood Wars would never happen. All those lives would be saved. On the cosmic scale, that would make this ok, wouldn’t it? It had to. Nodding to herself and resolved in her plan, Hermione took out her wand and oblivated the matron, altering her memories that both mother and child died during the birth.

Hermione apparated home with baby Tom and prepared the blood adoption ritual that would make him her son in all the ways that mattered. She would stick to the plan. It was all for the greater good.


End file.
